Voters To Tea Party And Republicans: Get Lost!

Across the nation on election day Tuesday, voters — who went to the polls in higher-than usual numbers — had little trouble pushing back the inroads made by Republicans in the 2010 elections, and furthering the idea that American is not a center-right country. Democrats handily won a great number of races and important ballot issues, sending a strong message to the Republican Party and to the Tea Party: get lost!

The question now is, to what degree did the Occupy Wall Street movement impact Tuesday’s elections? There’s no way to measure, but I’ll offer this: had Occupy Wall Street either not happened, or had it been unsuccessful, voter turnout would have been lower, and Republicans would have performed better. Americans are angry, but too many progressives and Democrats have been far too complacent. Just as the Tea Party energized the Republican base when it first appeared on the scene, so has the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Critical decisions were made in favor of unions and workers’ rights, women’s rights, and LGBT candidates, who were huge winners across the country. Anti-gay, so-called “pro-family” organizations, like NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, Bob Vander Plaats‘ Family Leader, the American Family Association, and the Family Research Council, were crushed.

Even in conservative, religious, right-wing Mississippi, the “personhood” bill was roundly defeated. It would have made contraception and miscarriages illegal, declaring that life begins at the moment of conception.

The single-most important person who fathered Arizona’s infamous immigration law, SB 1070, was recalled. “Considered the de facto governor of Arizona, the seemingly invincible and right-wing extremist Pearce became the first state senate president in American history to be thrown out of office in a recall election,” Alternet reported.

Republican­s attempted the old "bait and switch". Campaign on job creation and then proceed to implement an agenda composed of socially regressive and anti-union policies along with a self-servi­ng, nefarious plan to selectivel­y restrict the ability to vote.

American people to GOP: you can fool some of the people some of the time, however ….